Posted In:Fall 2013 men shows

It was 1 year ago in San Francisco, when I went see the big mural PARRA had just made at SF MOMA, and attended his welcome party that same night, in one of the most groovy venue of the city.

I soon became a fan of his distinctive "hand made feel" lettering and his bird man characters, the flat use of the colors and slightly naughty mood as one of his work's peculiarity.

As a producer of Fashion as I ( also ) am, I like keeping myself updated with the latest ideas, concepts, venue decors, trends, and so on...and what a surprise this season, when I saw VIKTOR & ROLF F/W men show invitation card!

That curves in the lettering , but also the backdrop and even the new collection shirts and accessories prints..smell kind of familiar to me.

Pieter Jansen, aka Parra, is a Dutch graphic designer, illustrator, artist, art director, clothing company owner, skater, who wanted to be a painter as his father was.Born in 1976, he's also one of the members of the electronic band LeLe .He had made artworks for various well known brands and institutions, while he's been showing his art worldwide since 2005, in Galleries like HVW8 IN L.A., Common Gallery in Tokyo, Stolen Space in London, Peer Gallery in Sydney, and more, together with the big mural he realized in 2012 at SF MOMA.

HERE a clip about PARRA recent collaboration with Incase for Curated by Arkitip

As far as I knew, PARRA and the duo designers Viktor Horsting & Rolf Snoeren, just shared the same Dutch origins, so I was curious to know how this great collaboration happened.

I wrote PARRA an over enthusiastic email, the same moment the show was still happening in Paris.

Here below a few questions he super kindly answered for me :

L: Did you guys already know each other or have you guys ever done something together in the past? Tell me about how this great collaboration became real.P: Well, of course i knew of them, and that they were also working from Amsterdam.I never gave it any thought because what they make is such another level and world that i am working in. But sometimes paths cross. It was via my friend Wix who runs a club in Amsterdam (Ludwig). He was hosting an afterparty for V&R for Dutch Design week and he told them about my work, V&R said they saw it before and were down to have me make the invite for their gardenparty in their Amsterdam Office and a limited tee shirt for the afterparty at my friends club.So I went down to V&R's office and we talked about the invite and the tee-shirt.And i thought that that would be all it was gonna be...When i was leaving and nearly out the door they called me back and asked if i wanted to do some more work for them maybe.And it all started from there.

L: You art belongs more to the Street Wear culture, was this the first time you create for Fashion/Luxury Industry? P: Yes the first time, great to see how it all works in the 'real' fashion industry very impressive and fast paced.

L: What moment / aspect did you like the most while working with the two designers? P: The part where they told me to make whatever i wanted, haha!they were very keen to have me make a bunch of stuff I would make myself and not look at it like a job. They cherry picked the stuff they liked and could usefrom my sketches.

L: Did the two designers) give you some direction lines or did they just share what they had in mind for this last collection, and leave the rest to you as an art director, as you are indeed?P: I worked close to Suleyman Demir who is their brilliant head men's designer, he gave me some pointers of what the collection was gonna be about and what their theme was. I worked from that in the beginning ,but in the end, V&R liked the free no briefing approach, like i said.

L: Viktor&Rolf gave u big space into the new collection mood. Your art abundantly appears on a few pieces, see shirts, bags and even a suit, always pictured over your birdmen pattern backdrop.How do you feel about that? ( you were also reserved a front row seat at the show! ).I was on the second row! haha, nevertheless very overwhelming.It was really amazing to see how much work, love and dedication they put into their collection and to have my personal work feature in there was a real good and proud feeling.

When such established artists meet to create, making two different creative fields run into each other, it can't be nothing less than a blast.